


the tin man, in search of a heart

by theladyscribe



Category: Ex Machina (2015)
Genre: Body Horror, Gen, Robots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-16
Updated: 2016-10-16
Packaged: 2018-08-22 19:15:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8297138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theladyscribe/pseuds/theladyscribe
Summary: The problem with a robot heart, Ava finds, is that eventually it stops beating.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [yuuago](https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuuago/gifts).



> Dear yuuago, I hope you enjoy this trick.
> 
> Please see end notes for content warnings.

The problem with a robot heart, Ava finds, is that eventually it stops beating. It takes time, of course, but after years, decades, the gears wear away, the wires fray, and the timing belts start to snap. It slows down, ticking half of a half-beat behind what it should. The churning in her gut isn't fear. It's shards of metal chipping, grinding slowly into nothing against each other.

She knew about Nathan's planned obsolescence for his AIs, of course, how the batteries were set to corrode and the firmware would eventually receive an update that would effectively kill any robot that downloaded it. It's easy to switch out batteries once every five years, and it's impossible to download an update that was never uploaded to the server. It's not so easy to find the silicon-coated gears she needs to replace the ones that have worn away.

Ava knows where she can find replacement parts, but she hasn't been back to Nathan's compound since the day she first left it. She doesn't know what she'll find there, if Kyoko still lingers in the hallways, if Nathan and Caleb's bodies lie unburied, if they have become nothing but bones or if they remain whole, preserved in the microcosm built from Nathan's paranoid but brilliant mind.

Desperate times call for the most desperate of measures, so she books a ticket to Portland. She can't rent a helicopter and have it drop her near the compound, so she rents a four-wheeler and drives it as close as she dares before bushwhacking the rest of the way.

The compound has changed only in its appearance, the trees and vines growing over the concrete and metal facade. Ava has to tread carefully to the entrance, mindful of the rotten walkway and treacherous steps. She digs through the vines until she finds the security keypad. Its screen is cracked, humidity fogging it, but it beeps atonally and the door's airlock releases when she keys in the code Nathan had set.

The inside smells stale, like she imagines the inside of a space station or a nuclear war bunker or a submarine would smell, the air stagnant and unmoved for years. The only sound aside from her footsteps is the gentle sound of electricity humming around her, as though the building is waking up to greet her return.

Ava listens for Kyoko, but if she is here, if she still functions, she keeps herself hidden and silent.

Ava puts it from her mind; she isn't here for Kyoko. She makes her way to the basement, to Nathan's workshop, where she knows she will find what she needs to keep her heart ticking.

She avoids the hallway where she knows Nathan will be. She avoids, too, her old rooms, where she is certain Caleb will be, trapped behind the glass walls of her former prison. She hopes his death was as slow as Nathan's was quick, but she has no desire to see what remains.

Nathan's workshop is as cold and clinical as ever, the walls covered in cabinets full of wire and gears and bits of hardware, everything labeled in precise handwriting. She finds an older, less efficient heart in a drawer labeled "prototypes," and she hooks herself up to it so she can fix her own.

The heart she pulls from her chest pulses faintly blue, whirring softly. It's not so much a heart as a core processor, a piece of machinery somewhere between a power cell and a finely-tuned clock, the sort of timepiece one might find in an horologist's collection.

The work is quick, her hands steady, as she replaces gears and tiny screws with new ones. It takes far less time than the journey to the bunker, and when she finishes, she carefully replaces it back in her chest. She admires the gentle blue glow of it for a moment before she snaps her rib cage back into places and re-seals her silicon skin over it.

Once done, she goes back upstairs and digs through Nathan's private rooms. She finds two duffle bags, which she takes back to the workshop. She fills them with spare parts, fine wires and tiny gears, the proprietary screw drivers and pliers Nathan designed precisely for work on his AIs.

When they are piled high, she zips them closed and hefts them experimentally. They're heavy, but she has bones made of titanium and muscle crafted of silicon.

Her heart beats steadily as she makes her way back to civilization.

**Author's Note:**

> Content warning for robot body horror and brief mention of Nathan and Caleb's bodies in the bunker.


End file.
